Throbak Overbride Boost clone QUIET GERMANIUM SWITCH

Forum dedicated to helping people debug and troubleshoot non-functional pedals or builds. Please use an clear and informative title, indicating circuit and basic problem. Don't forget to mark the issue as fixed if this is the case.
Post Reply
User avatar
kdmr
Information
Posts: 2
Joined: 04 Mar 2013, 17:25

Post by kdmr »

built this pedal last night. it sounds really great besides the fact that the germanium switch comes with a significant drop in volume. the tone produced by the diodes is spot on as well. gone over all my joints and everything is spiffy. it is build exactly to the specs (with a 1n270 in D1) in the attached layout except for:
1) treble 2 lug feeds the 5.6k resistor (i think it was a typo)
2) Q4 is a 1n914 diode. i had an ac128 in there that i had laying around and it was just awful.
3) germanium switch is wired to a footswitch for live switching.

any ideas? the only thing i havent tried is replacing the 1n270 with a new one, but if its fried it shouldn't it not work at all?
Attachments
Throbak-Overdrive-Boost-1.png

User avatar
Intripped
Cap Cooler
Information
Posts: 670
Joined: 25 Aug 2009, 01:03
Location: Italy
Has thanked: 989 times
Been thanked: 305 times

Post by Intripped »

volume drop is normal when switching to germanium diodes
if you want to switch it live then you have to boost the volume a bit at the same time - hopefully someone else more experienced than me will suggest an easy mod

User avatar
kdmr
Information
Posts: 2
Joined: 04 Mar 2013, 17:25

Post by kdmr »

i think i've solved the problem, will be building/testing tonight:
there was room left on the board i used for this build so i slapped together an lpb1 circuit. now, the wire from the germanium switch that previously closed the germanium path is routed to lpb1 "in". A 100k trimpot was substituted for the external pot. i'll use this to get unity gain and never touch it again. lug 2 on the trimpot is now wired to the germanium path.

does this make sense?

i'll post results when i have them.

Post Reply